i6a PLEASANT WA YS IN SCIENCE. 



and the Hansa left her. Soon after, the Hansa was crushed 

 by masses of drifting ice, and her crew and passengers 

 took refuge on an immense ice-floe seven miles in circum- 

 ference. Here they built a hut, which was in its turn 

 crushed. Winds and currents carried their icy home about, 

 and at length broke it up. Fortunately they had saved 

 their boats, and were able to reach Friedrichsthal, a mission- 

 ary station in the south of Greenland, whence they were 

 conveyed to Copenhagen in September, 1870. Returning 

 to the Germania, we find that she had a less unfortunate 

 experience. She entered the labyrinth of sinuous fjords, 

 separated by lofty promontories, and girt round by gigantic 

 glaciers, which characterize the eastern coast of Greenland 

 to the north of Scoresby Sound. In August the channels 

 by which she had entered were closed, and the Germania 

 was imprisoned. So soon as the ice would bear them, 

 Koldewey and his companions made sledging excursions 

 to various points around their ship. But in November 

 the darkness of the polar winter settled down upon them, 

 and these excursions ceased. The polar winter of 1869-70 

 was " characterized by a series of violent northerly tempests, 

 one of which continued more than 100 hours, with a 

 velocity (measured by the anemometer) of no less than 

 sixty miles an hour" a velocity often surpassed, indeed, 

 but which must have caused intense suffering to all who 

 left the shelter of the ship; for it is to be remembered 

 that the air which thus swept along at the rate of a mile 

 a minute was the bitter air of the Arctic regions. The 

 thermometer did not, however, descend lower than 26* 

 below zero, or 58" below the freezing-point a cold often 

 surpassed in parts of the United States. I have my. 

 self experienced a cold of more than 30" below zero, at 

 Niagara. " With proper precautions as regards shelter and 

 clothing," proceeds the narrative, " even extreme cold need 

 not cause great suffering to those who winter in such 

 regions. One of the worst things to be endured is the 

 physical and moral weariness of being cut off from ex- 



